


A Shot of Espresso

by compos_dementis



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America adds espresso to his morning coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shot of Espresso

It had started to become a terrible habit, in the mornings, to wake up and add a shot of espresso to his morning coffee.

 

Not that Arthur was paying any kind of particular attention to the way Alfred prepared his morning beverage – no, it was just something that stuck out like a sore thumb… was that being redundant? Everything American stuck out like a sore thumb. The boy couldn't walk into a bloody airport without catching the attention of nearly everyone there.

 

It was probably because he was so damn beautiful. Yes, that must be it, Arthur assured himself, and then felt a little jealous that so many could look at it so openly, and he had to hide his eyes whenever Alfred caught him… well, looking.

 

Anyway. The coffee.

 

Alfred added a shot of espresso to his coffee in the mornings. Despite all those waving-hand gestures and half-smiles and insistence that he was "trying to cut down on caffeine," he added espresso.

 

Just one cup of coffee, right when he got up. And then another one at breakfast, in which he added yet another espresso shot. (The lad still wolfed down his eggs and bacon like he was starving – hadn't Arthur taught him any manners?)

 

Sometimes, when Alfred would come and stay the night at Arthur's house when the International Conference was held in London (which it hadn't been, not in a long while, not after that last storm – no, everybody loved bloody _Paris _now), Arthur would drive him to the building. Alfred always insisted on stopping off at the nearest donut shop to grab extra food; but of course, he came out without the donuts, and just got the coffee instead.

 

With espresso. Of course.

 

And then at the Conference, Arthur pretended not to notice how Alfred's fingers tapped impatiently on the table as he waited for the Mr. Coffee to come up with a full pot, at which point he would just pour two cups – one for himself, and then another one for himself.

 

No espresso this time, but only because there was none available.

 

Alfred would be on the phone with important Chancellors or Ministers or other such vital people, and his cup would go cold, and he would go and retrieve another cup of coffee.

 

And at lunch, Arthur followed Alfred out to the nearest Starbucks and got himself an espresso.

 

They would stop at McDonald's; Alfred would order a Big Mac and a Diet Cola ("Everyone's drinking diet these days, you know," he told him, and Arthur would just tell him that he wasn't hungry, thank you).

 

He would order two sodas. Just in case he got thirsty on the drive.

 

By the afternoon, the poor boy would be so overcaffeinated that he was convinced he was going to have a heart attack, and would develop a migraine, popping a few Aspirin, and Arthur tried getting him to calm down and had even gone to the measure of removing all caffeinated beverages from Alfred's home as well as his own.

 

"This isn't healthy, you know," Arthur tried to tell him, making jokes about having to call an intervention between him and his bloody caffeine, and Alfred almost cried at one point because he said he needed his coffee so bad that if he didn't have it, he…

 

And it was now that Arthur noticed the bags under the blue eyes. The paleness of complexion. The tremble in those normally steady hands that, as much as Arthur tried to calm them by holding them in his own, wouldn't go away.

 

His boy. Sleep-deprived and shaking.

 

"What's been happening to you?"

 

"Nothing, I'm fine."

 

"You're not fine." _I know fine and this isn't it._

And Alfred just shook his head and tried to smile and insisted he was all right, and really, Artie, you shouldn't worry so much – you'll give yourself a tumor.

 

Worried. Worried? No. No, he wasn't worried. Not at all. Because Alfred didn't need to be worried over, right?

 

Right?

 

…right?

 

_Right._


End file.
